T'was The Night
by Lamina Court
Summary: Written for Lily Smith's challenge. It's Christmas Eve and Harry gets a few visitors to up his mood and Christmas Spirit. Why did they choose these things to show him and will it have any affect?


Alright people, this was written for a challenge I got randomly sent to me by Lily Smith. After ignoring the e-mail for a couple days I finally opened it to see what was going on. It was a fic challenge for Christmas with specific guidelines. I set out to write it without losing my dignity and pride; I spent time on this. So here is what I came up with in one night.

T'was The Night

It is one of those Christmas card or postcard photograph Christmases this year. No really – it is; one of the uniformly unmoving Muggle cards that people get in the mail and then comment on its usual beauty, keep on a mantle and then throw out and forget about in the matter of a month.

You don't believe me? Well, fine, look out the bloody window.

The snow isn't falling; it's still. There is a one-horse sleigh in mid-canter somewhere around the lake with the two random people sitting in it, bundled up and looking too happy and content to be real. The man holding the reigns doesn't have a decipherable face, as he is not important in such Christmas cards, and the horse has its mane ribboned with holly and what else? – ribbons. A large streetlamp from the early twenties shines brightly and there is a blue bird sitting upon it gaily. A large pine tree is decorated to the point of obscurity and the merging of a million different coloured lights hurts the eyes to look at. There is even a collection of ducks by the lake's frozen edge.

Dumbledore has definitely lost his mind this year and I wonder how Flitwick was able to appease him in his mass decorations and absolute lunacy.

Perhaps I'll never know.

As long as the fire in the Gryffindor common room keeps up, I'm fine. If that suddenly froze as well, I don't know what I'd do. Ron went to bed hours ago; he had too much eggnog tonight and regaled Hermione and me in stories of Father Christmas and mistletoe as if we had never heard of them. Hermione, actually, is in bed as well. The stories hurt her head when Ron was done and had told Ron unbelievingly that the stories were well, her exact quote went as follows, "That's the greatest invention since sliced bread!"

I didn't get it. Mistletoe wasn't really an invention. Perhaps she had gotten into the eggnog as well.

It's our last Christmas at Hogwarts and with the upcoming battle I can barely muster a smile for anyone. It's like – wait. What was that? The fire is flickering behind its grate, but there's not a wind anywhere in the large room…

"_Harry?_"

I jump up. "Who's there?" I ask. Last time I checked there was no one else here and I haven't heard anyone climb down the stairs.

"Ah, Harry, it's good to see you again," the voice says and this time it isn't oddly ghostly.

I know that voice but its owner couldn't be here… I turn around. Oh. My. Bloody. God. The voice has every reason to sound ghostly. "Sirius?" I ask, unable to keep my mouth from dropping.

"The one and only," Sirius-the-ghost says.

He isn't floating like the many ghosts of Hogwarts and he looks remarkably different from when I last saw him. He looks young, youthful and much like the photograph with him as best man I have stared at longer than I could count.

"I know what you're thinking," Sirius says. "You're dead, I'm hallucinating, Ron must have spiked my pumpkin juice – which he did by the way, why is Sirius here and how did he ever manage to look so good?"

"You got a couple right," I say honestly. I don't trust myself not to barrage him with questions, so thankfully he speaks again.

"Well, Harry, I'm your Ghost of Christmas Past, idiotically enough," Sirius-the-good-looking-ghost says.

"My Christmas What?" I ask in bewilderment.

"T'was the night before Christmas, Harry, and all through the Gryffindor Tower not a creature was stirring, not even a rat – the bloody coward," Sirius says.

"I'm still not following."

"I'm here to brighten your yuletide spirit," he explains. "I'm here for a limited time only, so you have to pay attention in order for this to go well. Let's start this."

"I still have no idea what you're saying," I say as my world blurs and begins to spiral. Sirius is gone and somehow I trust what he is telling me, even if I do not understand it.

The world stops twirling and the place before me is familiar; very familiar. The snow around my bare feet is not cold and in fact, I cannot feel anything: temperature, texture, wind. Nothing.

"The Burrow?" I ask and I don't believe there is anyone near me to listen.

"The Burrow," Sirius' ghostly voice repeats, "as it was twelve years ago."

"It looks the same," I say.

Inside the magically-held-together building sits much of the Weasley family, all looking much younger than I had ever seen them or ever expected to.

"This is not normal," I say, my breath not fogging the window.

"Harry, you're not a normal kid," Sirius says with a laugh. "Expect these things now."

Inside Ron is putting up a fight to go to bed.

"For Father Christmas forgetting children must be frightening for him, right mum?" the young Weasley asks.

"Yes Ronald," Mrs. Weasley says tiredly. "And when I figure out who put that spell on you, they're getting the wallop of a lifetime."

"Who wants a wallop from a mother Weasley when it's Christmas time?" Ronald asks and resists again being brought upstairs where Harry can hear Ginny yelling. Apparently she doesn't want to go to bed as well.

"Why are you showing me this?" I ask. "Am I supposed to learn something from it?"

"Oh I don't know," Sirius says. "It's just funny is all. Those Weasley twins perfected that grammar charm and I just had to see it in action. Quite brilliant for them to have put it on Ron with their father's wand at only age seven."

"Great galloping gryphons, mum!" the five-year-old Ron yells. "Dad didn't do this last year during Christmas Eve, did he?"

"No, he read you to sleep," Mrs. Weasley says.

"All of the tremendous trilogy," Ron pauses in his sentence, apparently unable to alliterate any further, but wanting to say more. "Tying trolls and… tragedy together with old trumpets, quite terrific of him and did you know, mum that the trilogy tried to… to trick dad?"

Mrs. Weasley and the other kids who are present in the room can only stare at the young Weasley.

"That was brilliant," Sirius says jovially. "I only wish I could have put it on James during his first date with your mum."

"That's nice," I say.

"The wizard was without a wand," Ron continues, "but would use magic, like the Wimbledon Wasps woman."

"Yes Ronald," Mrs. Weasley says tiredly and still tries to get her son towards the stairs.

"And their dragons were deadly and didn't share treasure, did they?" he asks.

"No Ronald."

"And the Hobbits had a tree horribly like the horrendous Whomping Willow at Hogwarts, Charlie says, but theirs was nicer and wouldn't whip anyone," Ron says. He is still putting up a bit of a fight, but is being guided up the stairs anyways.

I feel my body rise from the snow capped ground and Sirius floats beside me.

"I still don't understand why we're witnessing this," I say truthfully.

"It's funny, Harry," Sirius says. "Do you need much more of a reason than that?"

Ron isn't finished, apparently. "And the places the protagonists pop by have palaces and princes and a plethora of people who love their King," Ron says.

"How does he know those words at five?" I ask. This seems less like a memory or whatever it is and more like a huge hoax.

"Part of the spell," Sirius explains. "It's a good spell, Harry."

Mrs. Weasley, it seems, is wondering the same thing as I am. "Ronald," she says as she tucks him in, "that's quite enough. You're frightening your mum."

"So sorry, mum," Ron says sheepishly.

"Nod off to sleep now, love," Mrs. Weasley says and her voice is fading as is the scene. "Father Christmas comes tonight…"

The world is twisting and turning and I hear Sirius say, ghostly and far away, "_It was fun, Harry, if not a bit pointless. I'll keep an eye on you._"

I want to ask what he's talking about but the words escape me as I find myself back in the Gryffindor common room. There is no one here, of this I am sure. It looks just as I left it and for some reason, I find myself wondering if I really left after all.

"I think that was the most pointless thing Sirius could have shown you," says another ghostly voice. "Personally I would have shown you your first Christmas with your father and me, but Sirius chose to be the past."

My eyes widen. I barely recognise the voice but with what she said…

"Mum?" I ask. I can't see her anywhere and her voice seems to be coming from all around. Much like a normal mum, I'd imagine.

"Hello Harry," she says and finally she materializes by one of the large bookcases near the stairs.

Her silver form is beautiful and it's sad to see her hair, which I'd expect to be dark red, a metallic grey. Her green eyes as well are silver. Somehow it doesn't seem fair.

"How are you?" she asks.

"Feeling oddly miserable," I say honestly. It's not the first thing I'd expect to say to my mum and definitely not the first thing I'd ever want to say to her. "So are you, er, the Ghost of Christmas… Present?"

"I was left with this one after your Ghost of Christmas Future chose that one and no, he doesn't want me to tell you who he is," my mother says and rolls her eyes. "He wants it to be a surprise." She looks at me like I'm supposed to respond somehow to all the oddity happening around me.

"I have a pretty good idea who it is," I say quietly.

"Let's get this odd part of your life started, Harry," my mother says and once again the swirling and twirling of the Gryffindor common room happens and I wait for where we will land.

We land somewhere I hadn't been for a while.

"Mum, this is… this is Sirius' place," I say.

"It belongs to the Order now, Harry," she tells me; I already knew that, but it will always be Sirius' place to me.

"What are you going to show me here?" I ask.

"The question is not What, Harry, but Whom," she says and there is a light to her eyes. "I thought you might enjoy this as the present is the hardest to showcase, which is why the other two left me with it."

We are inside the old and forever mouldy Grimmauld Place and in a room I had spent too many afternoons cleaning.

"Is that-"

"Moody," my mum says humorously. "Yes it is, Harry."

"And he's-"

"Yes, Harry," my mum interrupts. She places a translucent silver hand over her mouth.

Moody is currently tapping his clawed foot to the music that sounds distinctly like a –

"Musical?" I ask. "Moody likes musicals?"

"You have no idea," my mum says. "I believe his favourite is Cabaret or at least it's the one I've seen him listen to the most."

I couldn't help to stare at my mum. "You spend your time watching Moody listen to musicals?"

"It only happened by chance the first time, Harry," she says honestly. "I was watching an argument that Sirius and Remus were having a couple years back, but I could hear tapping and went to investigate and found Moody listening to a musical."

The thought is quite disturbing and yet… Yet it is the funniest thing I have ever heard of. I start to laugh. I'm laughing because Moody listens to Broadway musicals; I'm laughing because my mum watches him; I'm laughing because something is happening to me and the Christmas Ghosts are visiting me and I have no idea what the bloody hell is going on. I wipe my eyes under my glasses and look back at Moody who is still bopping with the high-strung song and still tapping his clawed foot.

"What's he working on?" I ask and make my way to the desk he is at.

"Probably writing his own musical," my mum jokes and chuckles at her own joke. "I still haven't told James about this," she says laughingly.

But Moody is mumbling to himself, so as I usually tend to do, I listen in.

"Clarice will have hair of such golden delight and Maurice will be full of might," Mad-Eye Moody says. "Against their love for one another will be a battle about the town and its control over their cattle. Their love song will be sung among the fields and what they don't know is the power it wields."

My mum, although laughing, seems to respect Moody's poetry. "He's not too bad, you know," she says. "When he recites poetry, he loses his usual growl and abbreviation of words."

"Is any of this supposed to teach me something?" I ask. Didn't Scrooge have to learn how to give, respect and give charity to those who needed it? What am I learning? That my best friend can speak in alliteration, one of the Ministry's top Aurors is a musical fanatic and that my deceased loved ones all have their own ways to humour themselves in death?

It is somehow oddly reassuring.

"I think the point is that Christmas, no matter what has happened in the past or will happen in the future, Harry, will always remain a time of laughter and happiness. All you have to do is look for it," my mother says. She glances back at Moody once more.

"And if there is ever such a quarrel of love beyond its years, it is between the families of Clarice and Maurice and will bring us all to tears…"

She lets out one last snort and says, "It's been fun to share this with you Harry and remember that I'm always keeping one eye on you and the other on your father and his best friend. We're always here and will always hear you when you need to talk to us."

"Thanks mum," I say. A pang hits my heart: I'll probably never say it to her face again.

But the room is reeling and Moody and Grimmauld Place and my mother are disappearing…

"_I love you Harry_," her ghostly voice echoes.

I stumble on the red patterned rug of the Gryffindor common room and await my third ghost of the night. Sadly I know it will be the last.

I look around and wait for him.

First, like the others, I hear his voice, "I can't believe she never told me about Moody," he says.

I turn around and see my father sitting casually on the headrest of a high-backed chair like he weighs nothing more than a feather; which I'm sure he doesn't. Even in death he wears glasses.

"Though I'll let it pass because she wanted to show you first," he says. "It's forgivable."

Here he is: the man I didn't know but tried to model myself after, the man who was unforgivable to Snape, the man who somehow courted my mother, the man who was currently my Ghost of Christmas Future.

Of all the things I can say, all the things I want to and have always wanted to say…

"Hullo dad," I say instead.

He regards me humorously. "You look remarkably like me," he says. "It's a wonder you've made it through most of Hogwarts without having to fend off the birds with jinxes."

Ah there is the cocky smile Lupin once joked about.

"But enough about our good looks, Harry, I'm here to be your Ghost of Christmas Future," my father says. He glides off the headrest and walks to me. "It took me a long time to choose a good one, you know. Your mother was all about showing you the best your future has to offer – and it's pretty good if you stick to the good – but I decided to show you something about your future that is pretty exciting."

"So I'm going to survive Voldemort?" I ask immediately.

My father looks a bit unsure of what to say and I cannot say it calms me. "It depends, Harry. We all have a future; it's how you get there and which paths you choose that get you there. If you take certain paths, which I pray you do, you'll make it to what I'm going to show you. If you decide, let's say, to murder all your friends, take over Voldemort and become the next Evil Genius Dark Overlord, this future won't be so accurate."

"I don't think I'm heading towards the second example," I say.

"Then I think you'll like this one," my dad says.

The world, once again, twists and turns, flips and spins as my father and I go through my current scene to whatever it is he wants to show me.

As we materialize or the world materializes or whatever it is that's happening, a roaring of people reaches my ears. There is cheering and booing and screaming and clapping. What is it my father wants to show me?

"This will be great Harry," he says happily.

A large stadium is before us and I can see people on brooms and small flying objects and sweet Merlin my father brought me to:

"A Quidditch game," I say. It is not a question. I know a game of Quidditch when I see it.

"Exactly!" my father says as we make our way through the gates and onto the field. "Unlike your mother, when you're showering or snogging – things we know you'd not appreciate us watching – I watch Quidditch games, not keep hilarious secrets from my significant other." Above us the players are speeding on the fastest brooms I've never seen before. "I do other things, of course. Check up on Moony, make bets with Sirius on certain things in people's lives, swear at Snape with how he treats you – the usual – but I love seeing the Quidditch games."

"So we're here to watch part of a Quidditch game?" I ask.

"Together," my father says and there's something in his posture, his voice and his face that tells me it's a bit more than just that. "We get to see a game together," he repeats.

We make it to the centre of the field and overhead the players are getting a penalty and taking their positions.

From the high stand of important people and ticket winners, a loud voice calls across the field on a Sonorus charm.

I look around the stands and someone stands out to me… Myself. "Dad," I say, not listening to the man speaking above the crowd. "Is that me up there?" I squint and can barely see me, but I know myself well enough to see me and I'm certainly standing out quite a bit.

"In no matter a situation Harry, it is always best to find yourself and I'm proud to say you did so very quickly," my dad says.

I can barely recognise anyone around me in the stands, but I seem content, though I'm quite high up. "How can I see myself so well?" I ask.

"One of the many mysteries of this whole Christmas Future thing," my dad says. "Now pay attention, son."

"If you'd all pay attention to the blackboard, there is a little something for one of our audience members," the booming voice echoes.

I look away from me and to the blackboard. Its latest golden scripted advertisement is wiped clear (_'Gladrags Wizardwear - London, Paris, Hogsmeade…'_) and slowly words were being written in large sparkling letters.

Slowly I read them, "Harry Potter-" I look at my face in the audience and I seem to know what's going on but am shocked "- in just over eight months, you'll be a daddy. I'm pregnant." But the name that is signed under it is too blurry for me to read.

"What's going on?" I ask quickly over the ear-deafening cheering and screaming. The people in the stands are jumping up for me and whoever this mystery woman is. "Who is she? When is this?" I ask nervously. A _father_?

But my father is grinning like an idiot. "Congratulations, Harry. I must say she is an amazing choice."

"I couldn't read her name!" I yell over the crowd. "Where is she?" I look for me again in the crowd and see many people patting my back as I talk to the woman next to me happily. I can see her hair colour, her build, height and looks but I can't remember it no matter how hard I try.

"Don't bother trying to recognise her, Harry," my dad says.

"Do I know her?" I ask. I squint and try to see her better. My brain is registering her hair colour but the second I catch onto it, it leaves me again.

"Maybe you do, maybe you don't, Harry," my ghostly father says. "It doesn't matter. You won't be able to see her no matter who she is. You're not supposed to know such things right now and we're not letting you see her."

"What do you mean-?"

"What I mean is you're not meant to see her."

"So I'll be a father some day," I say quietly. I could barely hear myself over the cheering that is going on.

My father is more proud than I will ever see him. "This was for hope, Harry. You're on the right track so far, though it may not seem like it at times. Don't give up, as you've been thinking of doing some days. It's a tough life, being a super hero, but there will be the one judgement day and if you go in with the right attitude, this can be your future. You're pretty happy today, Harry."

I am watching myself… and me in the stands seems to be looking at me on the field. "Why am I looking here?" I ask.

"I thought that might be obvious," my father says in a way that reminds me of Lupin.

"I'll remember this," I whisper. "I'm looking for me."

"You won't see us, of course," my father says, "but you'll know that we were here watching it happen."

"I don't know which of the Christmases is the most surreal," I say. The cheering has died and players are zooming about again.

"My vote will most definitely be on your mother's," my father says. "I never would have dreamed that about Moody."

"Can you come back next Christmas?" I ask hopefully. "All three of you?"

My father smiles at me in a sad sort of way. "A man can only have so many epiphanies, Harry," he says.

I look at my dad, ignoring the game playing over our heads. I'll see it one day. "I'm scared of what's to come," I say more honest that I think I've ever been.

"Of parenthood?" my father asks. "Not the hardest thing in the world; you flow along with it, though you were pretty quiet – must be from your mother's side-"

"No, I mean about what's coming up," I interrupt. "Voldemort and everything."

"Well Harry, I cannot tell you what happens, I haven't seen it and am not looking forward to it either," my dad says. "I'd consider you a fool if you weren't scared. Stick by your friends, by Dumbledore, Moony, the Order and things should turn out alright. This snippet of your possible future is evidence of that. Your mother and I love you, Harry," he finished.

I can't reply that I love them too because I am disappearing again and the cheering crowd fades away.

"_Good luck_," my father's voice says and then I hear no more.

Harry Potter woke up on Christmas morning feeling horribly well rested. He groggily rolled over and automatically reached for his glasses. His dream was… Well, it was definitely weird.

Hedwig was waiting for him with a letter in her beak. "Happy Christmas, Hedwig," he said to the snowy owl. She flew to his knees when he sat up and dropped the letter on his lap.

After scanning its contents, the writers being Fred and George Weasley, he frowned and glanced at Ron who was up and reading a letter as well. According to the twins, they placed a spell on Ron's letter, '_for old times_' his letter read.

"Happy Christmas Harry, I hope you had hordes of happy dreams," Ron said from his bed. He blinked a couple times. "Blast those bloody bastards!" he exclaimed when he realised his fate.

Harry could only stare at his best friend in astonishment. "Are you… er, are you speaking in alliteration?" he asked slowly.

"I swear someday those sweaty trolls will seriously pay for submitting me to such suffering!" Ron exclaimed, waking up Neville Longbottom in the process.

"W-where are our gifts?" Neville asked during an obscenely large yawn.

Ron and Harry looked at the end of their beds, but there were no gifts.

Harry jumped up, as Ron searched under his bed, and looked out the window.

The snow was falling now, the Christmas tree lights were blinking, the one-horse sleigh was cantering in a large circle, the bluebird on the lamppost looked to be chirping. The ducks were flapping around and causing chaos by the lake's edge.

"Maybe someone else knows what's happened," Harry said. He threw on a robe and, with Ron and Neville in tow, ran down the stone steps and into the common room.

Professor McGonagall and Headmaster Dumbledore were there, already explaining to the ten or so students who stayed at Hogwarts about what happened to the gifts.

"Ah, good morning Mr. Weasley, Potter and Longbottom," Dumbledore said. "There is a precarious event unfolding with the ducks that I have imported from off the environs of Hogwarts."

"Why must you always speak in such large words?" a random student asked.

Dumbledore chuckled as McGonagall scolded the student.

Another student Harry didn't know spoke up, "Those aren't big words. A big word is something like supercalifragilisticexpialidocious."

"Boy knows his bloody big words," Ron muttered to Harry. "Bugger me if he's not a bit barmy, though."

"The longest word I have ever come across, young McCamberley," Dumbledore said, "is Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis."

"What would that word mean?" Ron asked.

"I have no idea," Dumbledore said pleasantly. "I just read it one day."

"And memorised it," Harry mumbled to Hermione who stood beside them.

"I read that in _Hogwarts, A History_," Hermione replied.

Harry blinked a couple of times. "Alright," he said slowly.

"The ducks, as I was saying," Dumbledore said, "reacted badly to the spell placed on them by Professor Flitwick and at midnight, when the spell was made to wear off, stole each and every present in the castle." The collection of students groaned. "So put on your outdoor clothes and join the rest of the staff and students in retrieving them from the lake!" Dumbledore seemed to think it was some sort of game.

No one else shared his opinion.

Harry shook his head and made his way back to his dormitory to get ready for an odd beginning to his last Christmas at Hogwarts. He could be upset along with most of the students and staff or he could take it all in stride and have fun with it like his epiphany, as his father called it, was supposed to teach him.

He would to join everyone outside and go fishing; and after they fished the presents out of the lake, they would all have hot chocolate.

The End.

So apparently there is some sort of "judging" thing to go on. When Lily Smith puts up her version (on the 23rd she says), pop a review in there and vote for me if you care to do so and if you think mine deserves a vote. Thank you for reading and Happy Holidays!


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